Cooper: Canada’s public servants are simply exhausted

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Ever since Brian Mulroney promised “a pink slip and a pair of running shoes” to any “bureaucrat” standing in the way of reforming the public service, the bureaucracy has been an easy, and defenceless, target for politicians seeking points with the electorate.

But while Canada’s federal public service is failing us, this time bureaucracy is not to blame.

Typically, Canadians don’t hear much from public servants, despite the essential role they play in our democracy. In an effort to preserve their impartiality, public servants stay out of the limelight and refrain from publicly defending themselves against attacks for being too big, too complex, too expensive, too slow and too unresponsive and unaccountable.

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These commonly heard criticisms, however, are not why the federal public service is presently failing Canadians. It’s failing Canadians because senior public servants are too exhausted to speak truth to power.

Don’t laugh; evidence abounds.

In a democracy, the essential role played by bureaucrats is to offer politicians their best policy advice in a frank and fearless manner. As stated in their Values and Ethics Code, public servants are required to “(provide) decision-makers with all the information, analysis and advice they need, always striving to be open, candid and impartial.”

Yet recently, public servants’ willingness to fearlessly advise governments is disappearing. Look no further than the Phoenix pay system. In his report of the problems underlying Phoenix, the late auditor general Michael Ferguson voiced dismay with a public service whose “ability to convey hard truths has eroded.”

Public servants’ aversion to convey frank and fearless advice is not only worrisome, but, from a historical perspective, surprising. Administrative reforms introduced under Prime Minister Robert Borden’s government (1911-1920) attempted to isolate public servants’ careers from electoral-political considerations through two major changes: merit recruitment and permanent positions. One hundred years later, Canada’s bureaucracy is still defined that way.

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In the 21st century, however, the rise of social media has led politicians to feel a never-ending need to react, and react quickly, to the most recent issue amassing attention online. In his book Governing Canada, former Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick warns aspiring political ministers that “a big risk for any minister is burnout … fatigue will push you to become irritable and reactive.” The same goes for public servants. Not only has the volume of demands originating from the online political realm saturated Canada’s public service, but trying to keep up with the onslaught of ostensibly “urgent” demands has left public servants overloaded and exhausted, weakening their capacity to develop and voice frank and fearless advice.

For instance, according to the 2022 Public Service Employee Survey, only 28 per cent of executive public servants — those working closest to political ministers — stated they “always” or “almost always” could complete their workload during regular work hours, in contrast to 74 per cent of non-executive public servants. Likewise 37 per cent of executive public servants reported “high” or “very high” levels of work-related stress compared to 19 per cent of non-executives.

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Trying to keep up with the constant barrage of requests from the political executive, senior public servants no longer have the time, space or energy to provide frank and fearless advice on core policy issues. They are too busy reacting to political demands.

Within the present era of online governance, the work environment of Canada’s public service has become subverted by what are essentially political-partisan concerns. Governments obsessed with protecting their image in an online world of endless “scandals” and “outrage” are using up much of the bandwidth of the public service to do so. The public service itself is not to blame for this current governance failure.

Brian Mulroney (1984-1993), by the way, did introduce important administrative reforms, but former public servants say he also grew to respect the bureaucracy; not only encouraging public servants to develop and bestow their best policy analysis, but taking the time to listen to them.

Mulroney, of course, did not govern in an era of online political pressure; but presently, Canada’s federal public servants do — and it’s exhausting.

Christopher A. Cooper is associate professor of public management at the University of Ottawa, and the author of At the Pleasure of the Crown: The Politics of Bureaucratic Appointments (UBC Press).

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